County schools reduce paper, increase technology use

Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, November 23, 2012 at 4:41 p.m.

Henderson County public schools continue to slash their use of paper in an effort to save money, and trees, while utilizing technology to encourage more student engagement in the classroom.

During the 2011-12 school year, the district turned out more than 4.5 million fewer copies of paper than it did in the previous year, resulting in a savings of about $80,000 in contractual copying costs and actual paper, said Bill Parker, assistant superintendent for administrative services. And according to Parker, it starts at the top with Superintendent David Jones, who took the position in July 2010 when budget issues with reduced state funding hit their peak.

"He's extremely technologically savvy," Parker said of Jones, "and with his guidance and leadership, he really made a strong push for us to drastically, as best we can, reduce our paper use as well as numbers of copies that we produce."

And so, in January 2011, the district began digitally recording its school board meeting minutes on iPads, which eliminated the huge stacks of paper previously used each month. This school year, it also eliminated the practice of printing hard copies of its student code of conduct — which were 30 to 40 pages thick for each of the district's 13,500 students — and started putting them online, though printed packets still are given to the few families who request them, Parker said.

He added that school administration does not have a specific goal with regard to paper use, other than to continue to reduce it while increasing access to technology for students, the general public and educators.

However, Parker said, officials do monitor the numbers on a quarterly basis across the county's 23 public schools and five additional sites, and the district as a whole cranked out about 19 percent fewer copies last school year than it did in 2010-11.

Of course there is a short-term trade-off, Parker said, with technology costs, "but certainly, regardless of the financial savings, there's an environmental impact with fewer sheets of paper having been used."

SUBHEAD

Two of the leading schools in the paper reduction effort are East Henderson High and Dana Elementary, each having slashed copies by about 40 percent.

However, while Dana Elementary Principal Kelly Schofield said the cost savings and environmental stewardship are important elements of reduced paper use, they are also positive by-products of an educational environment already well in place.

Dana Elementary has never been big on using worksheets during her seven years at the school, Schofield said, so jumping on board with the school district's emphasis on paper reduction was a natural transition.

"I think it aligns with our instructional philosophy and focus, which is more student engagement and more problem-solving, project-based learning," Schofield said, "so we don't need to run copies to do that. When we changed our framework to a more inquiry-based approach to all of our teaching, then that naturally dropped the amount of copies we used."

For example, Schofield said, if an assignment calls for students to compare and contrast two characters in a story, they do so more now through oral communication or writing responses in a journal, thus working at a higher level.

"That is the assessment," Schofield said. "That is where we're determining the students understand what they're reading, rather than 10 questions on a page about the story."

Laura McCall, a fifth-grade science teacher at Dana Elementary, said children "are some of the best environmentalists among us" and enjoy the green initiative. For some of their parents, however, there was an adjustment to make.

"I feel like several years ago there were times where some of my parents would question why there wasn't more work coming home, why there wasn't more graded papers coming home for their child," McCall said. "But I feel like we've gotten past that now to the point where parents realize from coming in and conferencing, seeing more examples from journals and notebooks that their children are working differently than they did when they were in school. And the parents know that if they want to see their children's work they can come in and see it, but that there isn't going to be a huge stack of worksheets coming home every Friday like there used to be."

<p>Henderson County public schools continue to slash their use of paper in an effort to save money, and trees, while utilizing technology to encourage more student engagement in the classroom.</p><p>During the 2011-12 school year, the district turned out more than 4.5 million fewer copies of paper than it did in the previous year, resulting in a savings of about $80,000 in contractual copying costs and actual paper, said Bill Parker, assistant superintendent for administrative services. And according to Parker, it starts at the top with Superintendent David Jones, who took the position in July 2010 when budget issues with reduced state funding hit their peak.</p><p>"He's extremely technologically savvy," Parker said of Jones, "and with his guidance and leadership, he really made a strong push for us to drastically, as best we can, reduce our paper use as well as numbers of copies that we produce."</p><p>And so, in January 2011, the district began digitally recording its school board meeting minutes on iPads, which eliminated the huge stacks of paper previously used each month. This school year, it also eliminated the practice of printing hard copies of its student code of conduct — which were 30 to 40 pages thick for each of the district's 13,500 students — and started putting them online, though printed packets still are given to the few families who request them, Parker said.</p><p>He added that school administration does not have a specific goal with regard to paper use, other than to continue to reduce it while increasing access to technology for students, the general public and educators.</p><p>However, Parker said, officials do monitor the numbers on a quarterly basis across the county's 23 public schools and five additional sites, and the district as a whole cranked out about 19 percent fewer copies last school year than it did in 2010-11.</p><p>Of course there is a short-term trade-off, Parker said, with technology costs, "but certainly, regardless of the financial savings, there's an environmental impact with fewer sheets of paper having been used."</p><p>SUBHEAD</p><p>Two of the leading schools in the paper reduction effort are East Henderson High and Dana Elementary, each having slashed copies by about 40 percent.</p><p>However, while Dana Elementary Principal Kelly Schofield said the cost savings and environmental stewardship are important elements of reduced paper use, they are also positive by-products of an educational environment already well in place. </p><p>Dana Elementary has never been big on using worksheets during her seven years at the school, Schofield said, so jumping on board with the school district's emphasis on paper reduction was a natural transition.</p><p>"I think it aligns with our instructional philosophy and focus, which is more student engagement and more problem-solving, project-based learning," Schofield said, "so we don't need to run copies to do that. When we changed our framework to a more inquiry-based approach to all of our teaching, then that naturally dropped the amount of copies we used."</p><p>For example, Schofield said, if an assignment calls for students to compare and contrast two characters in a story, they do so more now through oral communication or writing responses in a journal, thus working at a higher level.</p><p>"That is the assessment," Schofield said. "That is where we're determining the students understand what they're reading, rather than 10 questions on a page about the story."</p><p>Laura McCall, a fifth-grade science teacher at Dana Elementary, said children "are some of the best environmentalists among us" and enjoy the green initiative. For some of their parents, however, there was an adjustment to make.</p><p>"I feel like several years ago there were times where some of my parents would question why there wasn't more work coming home, why there wasn't more graded papers coming home for their child," McCall said. "But I feel like we've gotten past that now to the point where parents realize from coming in and conferencing, seeing more examples from journals and notebooks that their children are working differently than they did when they were in school. And the parents know that if they want to see their children's work they can come in and see it, but that there isn't going to be a huge stack of worksheets coming home every Friday like there used to be."</p>